Most industrial products or valuable goods are, at some time or another, stored in some kind of container for transport, storage, or confinement purposes.
The term “container” is used herein to mean any type of box, package, frame, storage space of any kind (e.g. an empty space in an aircraft, in a ship, in a truck, in a rail car, etc.), that is defined by an enclosure having access means that can be open or closed (e.g. a lid, a door, a hatch, etc.).
Naturally, it is fundamental to be able to monitor the opening of such a container, in particular in order to avoid or to detect the occurrence of theft or of a fraudulent manipulation, or indeed to be able to avoid or to detect an anomaly in the operation of the means for accessing the container.
For this purpose, certain containers include a numbered metal rod (or “seal”). While a container is being transported, the seal is put into place prior to departure of the container so as to prevent the container being opened. On receiving the container, it is verified that the number on the seal corresponds to the number of the seal that was put into place before the departure of the container, and the seal is cut so as to end transport of the container and give access to the object stored inside the container. That solution is reliable and inexpensive, but it is essentially manual. In addition, after opening, when it is only a portion of the contents of the container that is taken out, and it is desired to prevent theft of the remaining portion, then the container needs to be reclosed and a new seal installed.
Certain containers are thus provided with electrical monitoring devices. Electrical monitoring devices are either connected by a wired connection to an external source of electricity (e.g. mains), thereby making them more complex to use, or else they are themselves independently powered.
Independent power is difficult to implement since it is then necessary to ensure that monitoring is effective while also limiting the electricity consumption of electrical monitoring devices so that they can remain independent throughout the time taken for transport.